Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-29
ordinances regulating our business
signs and interfering with our business

men in the country. And it is to
them that the lawmakers and the
public owe such knowledge of the
subject as has caused all recent dis
cussion.
There is another side of the subject
of divorce than the legal or legislative
side, upon which the forthcoming sta
tistics by the Government bureau will
throw instructive light, and that is
the sociological side. For instance,
there are enough statistics now to
show that the number of divorces do
not depend wholly, perhaps not to
any very great extent, upon the strin-
gency or the looseness of the law.
Broadly speaking, the States which
may be called "easy States" to pro-
cure divorce in, SO far as the statutes
are concerned, are the following:
| The wife may secure divorce if
her husband fails to support her in
New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, In
diana, Michigan, Nebraska, Delaware,
Tennessee, Nevada, Colorado, Wash
ington Territory, Idaho, Wyoming,
Utah and Arizona, and for "willful
neglect" in California and Dakota.
Disappearance of either party is suffi-
cient cause in New Hampshire, Yer
mont, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Divorces are still readily granted in
Rhode Island for gross misbehavior
and wickedness repugnant to and in
violation of the marriage contract :"
for "cruel and barbarous treatment CT
wife" in Pennsylvania for any or in
definite causes, at the discretion of the
court, in Wisconsin, Washington Ter
ritory, Arizona and Florida; also, in
Ohio and Michigan, where the other
party has secured divorce in another
State, or after five years voluntary sep
aration in Wisconsin and Kentucky.
Kentucky, so far as the law goes, is
one of the easiest States in the Union
where a divorce may be had; yet
Kentucky is not State that has been
noted for the number of its divorce
cases. In the foregoing list Of "easy
States" it will be noticed that Della
ware, Tennessee and Florida belong
by as good right as any of the New
England States. Yet these States have
never taken high rank among the
notorious divorce States. There is
not so close a connection between the
stringency of the laws and the number
OF divorces as there is between the
temptations given to Inconsistency in
large cities and the number of di-
vorce. AS rule rural communities
have few divorces.
The forthcoming statistics will,
| hnrafnrn hn intnra1t M
for purely social study of different
communities than for legal or legis-
lative study. They may make some
explanation of the social causes of
domestic infelicity in certain com
munities, for the courts are neither a
cause nor cure, but simply a regis
tering place for unbearable cases of
ill-making.
The San Francisco ratio of divorces
to marriages in 1881 reached the
amazing number of one divorce to
every 5.7S marriages, largely exceed
ing the New England rate. The
ratio OF the two most populous coun-
ties of Minnesota increased in ten
years, in one Of them from one divorce
in 29.4 marriages to one in 22.9; and
in the other, from one in 10 to one in
u. For six years the rate in Cook
county, (Chicago) ILL.,, has been one in
every 9.5 marriages.
st. Louis has not been bashful or
even modest in this regard, having
invoked 410 hearts that did not beat
in PAIRS, in one year, and the succeed
ing year entertaining 430 divorce suits
to restore $50 miserable beings to sim
gle blessedness.
No Southern statistics have been
collected on this subject. The South
in anti-bellum days was composed
more or less of aristocrats and slaves.
Among the former class divorces were
very rare, though immortality by men
was not rare. and among the latter
marriage and divorce were superfluous
ceremonies. Divorces are now becom-
ing more numerous in that section. A
large number have lately been granted
in Atlanta; and in Baltimore the pro-
portion of divorces to marriages has
increased from in 81 in 1870 to in
"a in 1886. The overthrow of slavery
and the growth OF larger cities in the
South are making the number OF di-
vorces steadily greater.
The Ohio courts in 1882 granted one
divorce to every 1868 marriages.
Philadelphia granted POI divorces in
1862, 215 in 1872, and All in 1882,
while New York city only granted PIP
in 1870 and 316 in 1882; although a
much larger city, New York falls be-
hind Philadelphia by Isl cases of di-
vorce in 1882. Certainly this can be
somewhat accounted for byt he nine
causes for divorce under the Pennsyl-
vania law and only one under the New
York law.
Connecticut in 1878 and for fifteen
years prior thereto granted about one
divorce to every 1914 marriages. YER
mont the same year to IA. Massa-
chusetts for the same year l to 21.4.
Rhode Island in 1882, l to IL. New
Hampshire in 1882, 10 1919. Maine
in 1880, to 10.
The ease with which divorce DEGREES
have heretofore been secured in Con-
necticut made that state the Mecca OF
divorce couples. But since the repeal
of the "omnibus clause" which al
lowed divorce for any cause in the
discretion of the court, the number OF
divorces is decreasing. Maine, Yer
mont and Massachusetts and New
Hampshire have followed in this lead
OF Connecticut and enacted stringent
changes in the divorce laws.
The rate of divorce is rarely so high
in Europe as with us; but Europe eX-
ceeds the United States in the high
rates of illegitimacy and sexual inn
morality.